


18:  That Tragic Set of Charms

by light_source



Series: High Heat [18]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-25
Updated: 2011-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 01:32:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The click of the lock is about the best sound he thinks he’s ever heard. Except for maybe the sounds that are now coming from Lincecum’s throat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	18:  That Tragic Set of Charms

_wait a minute. . .rewind_

There’s still a few hours before sunset, and the windows of the downtown high-rises are glinting back in the slanting early-evening light. Everything’s set. Zito hasn’t eaten all day. Not very many things are more satisfying to him, or more nerve-wracking, than giving a party.

Zito’s done this countless times before. He knows how to angle himself in a group, how and why to play a gambit, which glances to register and which to ignore, which half-closed doors to pass without looking. But still, _parties_. The half-hour before the first ring of the doorbell is the worst, when everything waits, the sound of clocks ticking all over the house.

He can’t help wondering why he feels so unsettled.

He can’t stop thinking about the day the Giants had played Oakland and he’d lost so spectacularly to Dan Haren. He and Tim were drinking beers in some bar in Hunter’s Point when Haren’s postgame interview flashed on one of the bar's TV screens. He’d pretended not to be interested. But the way Danny had looked: indifferent, impatient, answering the reporters’ questions rotely, like a factory worker who’s just punched the clock after completing his shift.

Zito doesn’t remember whose idea it was to drive out to Candlestick that evening. He just remembers he’d had to get out of that bar, away from the dross the TV was dredging up. When they got out to the old ballpark, something about the barrenness of the place, the broken pavement, had hit him in the gut. And then Tim had kissed him.

That kiss. It was like being kidnapped, he reflects, and then discovering that the person who’d seized you was actually pulling you to safety.

//

When the guests start spilling through the door and then the trickle of people becomes a flood, Zito feels like he’s got his feet back underneath him. But then, in the middle of giving instructions to the head bartender about the drinks, he stops. Across the blur of partygoers he sees Lincecum looking at him, his eyes half-closed, his chin tipped up, unsmiling but riveting all the same.

In the middle of a sentence Zito loses track of himself. The look they’re exchanging makes him feel like a rabbit who suddenly realizes there’s a coyote uphill who’s been watching him from the tall grass.

And then Lincecum’s gone, vanished beneath the surface of the crowd.

//

Zito doesn’t see Lincecum again until the party’s already started to break up.

In the kitchen, he signs off with the caterers, who’ve already swept through the place, straightening, wiping up, shagging glasses. They’re crating up their bar setup and loading out a van.

When he finishes with them, Zito does a leisurely circuit of the first floor. There are a few couples still on the dance floor; the very married Russ Ortiz is slow-dancing with someone with long dark hair who’s got her head nestled against his shoulder next to their clasped hands. Randy Messenger’s sprawled across one of the couches doing card tricks for the benefit of a red-haired girl who’s clearly more than a little blitzed.

Out near the pool, beneath the smoke of the citronella torches, a dozen or so of his teammates are circled around a game of dominoes, rocking with boisterous laughter.

\- You losing again, Kevin? Zito asks as he approaches, sending up another roar from the group.

\- Mr. Frandsen is the world’s reigning genius at arranging his own demise, says Wilson, whose language always gets more flowery as he gets more drunk.

For the second time tonight, Zito’s arrested by a glance out of the darkness. Lincecum’s at the edge of the circle, stretched out on a lounge chair, one knee up, the end of his lit joint blazing orange as he sucks in a hit.

When Zito kneels next to him, Tim doesn’t look at him, but simply hands him the joint, his right hand to Barry’s left. When their fingers touch, their eyes meet, and it’s hard for Zito to know what’s going on there. Tim’s eyes are lined with fatigue and reddened from the drug, his pupils huge in the dark.

The look on his face is guarded, as though he’s frankly appraising Zito’s motives.

Zito knows that all he can do is walk away.

//

When Lincecum appears in the doorway of the kitchen a few minutes later, Zito’s not sure what’ll happen.

\- This place is something, says Lincecum. - To own this place, he rephrases carefully, as though he’s reconsidering his statement, - that would be something. He’s leaning up against the counter. His tongue’s rubbing a spot on a molar, his arms folded across his chest.

\- Thanks, says Zito, drying his hands on a towel.

An uneasy silence, full of things unspoken, unfurls between them.

Zito opens one of the dishwashers that are already in cycle and pulls out a glass, hot and dripping. He rinses it in the sink, fills it with cold water from the tap, and offers it to Lincecum. But Tim makes no move to take it from his hand.

\- Ice, says Lincecum.

\- You’re pretty demanding, says Zito.

\- Yeah, I am, says Tim. - I need to be, to get what I want.

He extends his arm and holds out his hand, palm up.

\- Give it, he says. Zito opens the freezer to reach for some ice, but Lincecum says abruptly,

\- I’m not talking about water.

Tim’s flattened affect has given way to a small but unmistakably mischievous smile, his eyes half-closed, his expression utterly focused.

\- I know you’ve been thinking about fucking me all night, Barry, he says. - So stop thinking about it and make it happen.

Zito’s blown away. He sets down the glass on the counter. When he slowly raises his hand to take Lincecum’s, Tim yanks him in to a kiss that’s like a river of darkness, all swirling tongue and warm hands on his neck, and on his jaw, and other hands slipping expertly into his pants, and _uunnhh_. He’s so hard so fast he doesn’t know or care where he is - only that he doesn’t want this to stop.

The whoosh of the sliding glass doors, signaling people in motion, wakens Zito reluctantly from the spell, and he literally pushes away from the counter, loosening himself from Lincecum’s grasp. His heart’s pounding, and he can feel himself blushing furiously like a teenager.

He steps forward to the sink, his hips against the counter, where he hopes his hard-on won’t be so obvious to anyone who wanders into the kitchen. Zito thinks he can hear Tim’s breath coming fast, and the color in his cheeks is high.

But the group of stragglers who’s come in for a fresh set of drinks doesn’t seem to notice.

Everyone else looks just as fucked up and tired and happy as we do, just for different reasons, Zito thinks to himself, so rattled that he’s almost come back to being calm.

The strangest part of it all is the way he can’t stop smiling.

//

\- Cut it out, hisses Lincecum as they slip past the front door and down the hallway to the half-flight of stairs that leads to the second level. Zito’s got his hand down the back of Tim’s loosened jeans, squeezing his ass, and Tim feels Zito land a hot, wet kiss on his neck and it’s so good it’s getting fucking hard to walk.

\- Oh, come on, says Zito, opening the third door on the left, his bedroom. - It’s my house. And you, of all people -

\- People will say we’re in love, says Lincecum. - You - of all people - you know how that works. You fucking black-hearted bastard.

Zito pulls Lincecum in the door and closes it behind them. The click of the lock is about the best sound he’s ever heard, he thinks to himself. Except for maybe the sounds that are now coming from Lincecum’s throat.

//

Tim leads him by the hand over to his own bed.

Zito’s a spiritual guy, this is a well-known fact. He’s got all kinds of little shrines and altars set up all over the house - he calls them his ‘anchors’ - to express his devotions to various principles. The bedroom’s no exception. On the shelf above the bed there’s a whole array of objects. There are signed pictures of Sandy Koufax and Carlos Santana and incense sticks and a pint-sized meditating Buddha and a couple of framed poems by a thirteenth-century Sufi poet.

Lincecum scoots across the bed over to the headboard and systematically gathers everything up, stacking the photographs face-to-face so they don’t get scratched. With the side of his arm, he neatly shoves the lot over into the corner of the shelf.

\- No baseball in bed, he says to Zito, - or any of that other shit.

And then for a moment he looks consternated. - Excuse my French, he says, maybe because of the Buddha; more likely because of Koufax.

Zito opens his mouth to protest, but before he can say anything, Lincecum adds - And this is important. You don’t get to have anything on.

He pulls Zito’s polo shirt off over his head as though the big left-hander’s a five-year-old. He twists Zito’s Rolex off his wrist, and deftly unbuckles his belt, whips it though the loops, and makes it vanish over the side of the bed.

\- Slow down, Timmy, says Zito, and Tim smacks himself melodramatically on the forehead, as if to say - _oh, of course, yes, forgive me._

He slides off his own shirt, and they’re both now down to their unbuttoned jeans and bare feet, and he pulls Zito down, across himself, and nearly rolls him off the side of the bed.

\- How slow do you want it, he asks. - Cause I have a plan.

Zito’s lying there on his back, warm and happy and horny as hell, with this maniac hovering over him, spewing commands like he’s a brigadier general. And the fuck of it is that all he can do is smile and shake his head in disbelief.

\- You said _I’d_ been thinking about fucking _you_ all night, Zito points out. - And now I can’t get a word in edgewise.

\- I did. And I meant it. And what that means is that you’re gonna fuck me all night, says Lincecum with a half-smile and a sideways glance. - That’s where the slow part comes in.

And suddenly Zito’s laughing so hard he thinks he’s gonna choke, and Tim slaps him on the back, a little alarmed. When he finally catches his breath, he gives Tim a long look, and shakes his head, and then he takes Tim in his arms and kisses him, gently at first. Pretty quickly the gentle kiss turns into something that feels more like diving into the clear blue waters of Lake Tahoe on a blisteringly hot summer day.

//

\- God, your body. How do you walk around in that? asks Tim.

He’s got Zito staked out for mapping this time, using his hands and his mouth, his shaggy hair brushing over Zito’s skin, till Barry has to start thinking about stuff like his win/loss record against the Padres just to keep from coming.

They’ve long since shed their jeans and underwear, and they’re lying on top of the cashmere comforter, Tim on his side and Barry on his back, and suddenly, as surrenders himself to the feel of Tim caressing his body, Zito notices Tim has nothing on his hands and wrists.

\- Where’s your watch and stuff? says Zito drowsily, unwilling to rouse himself fully from this waking dream.

Lincecum mumbles something, the words muffled by his mouth in Zito’s hair. He lifts his head. - I took ‘em off.

\- Just now? asks Zito.

\- No. When Nate and I had just walked in the door? There was something about the way you looked at me. He leans in and kisses Zito slowly, almost tentatively, on the neck, his breath warm and damp, in a way that makes Zito arch up, asking.

\- It’s good to be prepared, he continues, and then his tongue’s in Zito’s mouth, teasing around his lips, and his teeth are there, feral against Zito’s lips.

//

What’s different, this time, is the way their eyes are wide open.

He’s so hot and so tight, Zito thinks, delirious, as Lincecum rises up against his fingers, his hips bucking against Zito’s hand, his hands braced against Zito's chest.

When Tim throws a leg over him, balancing himself slowly and carefully above Zito, and then lowers himself bit by bit onto his cock, the way the pleasure reads itself into his face is almost too much, and Zito wants to close his eyes, and stop time.

\- No, wait, says Tim, grasping Zito’s jaw with his fingers, which are shaking, his whole body’s shuddering with the feel of him, inside him, that sweet spot nobody knew existed, and if it gets any hotter, he’s gonna explode.

And he leans forward, watching, and Barry thrusts into him at this new angle that feels like an entirely new world. And their mouths together are their own language, sufficient for things they don’t yet know how to say.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The chapter title comes from this song:
> 
> When people ask me where I come from  
> To see what that says about a man  
> I only end up giving bad directions  
> That never lead them there at all
> 
> It's something written in the headlights  
> It's something swimming in my drink  
> And if I were the moon  
> It'd be exactly where I fall
> 
> You got that special kind of sadness  
> You got that tragic set of charms  
> That only comes from time spent in Los Angeles  
> Makes me wanna wrap you in my arms.
> 
> Dawes, "Time Spent in Los Angeles" (2010)


End file.
